Plight of Saudi Women in Contemporary American Fiction

Saudi Arabia is often perceived worldwide as a religiously conservative country in which religion plays a central role in women's daily lives. With growing Western interest in the rights of Saudi women, many contemporary Western novels mistakenly attribute their plight to Islamic teachings. This book examines this assumption through two contemporary American novels-Jo Franklin's The Wing of the Falcon (1995) and John Briley's The First Stone (1997)-as representations of Western public opinion. The study argues that the challenges faced by Saudi women, as depicted in these works, stem from local cultural traditions rather than Islamic teachings. Adopting a postcolonial feminist approach, the study critiques the Western tendency to universalize women's issues regardless of cultural differences. It analyzes Western texts about Third World women and situates them within their appropriate ethnic, cultural, and religious contexts.